


Death Won't Come

by buttonless



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood & Gore, Death, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 14:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2351621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttonless/pseuds/buttonless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wants information about Metatron, but Tessa wants to talk souls- Specifically, the state of Sam's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Won't Come

“I know what you did,” Tessa tells him, the blood of her cut lip dribbling down her chin.  “To your brother.”

 

_Save us, help us, you have to help us, Where am I, help me_

 

“I saved his life,” he returns without a beat as he drags the knife through the flesh of her form’s thigh- Well, her thigh, now. It’s odd to have a body, instead of a vessel or a projection. Odd to have her existence depend on something so fragile. And breakable.

 

“Sure you did,” she manages to grunt, though the pain makes her want to scream.  “And Damned his soul. For eternity.”

 

“Wow,” he grins at her.  “You will say just about anything to get me to stop this, huh?”

 

He takes a small, sharp knife off of the nearby table and buries it in the arm of the chair- Through her hand. She writhes against the cuffs that shackle her down as she cries out.

 

“Death was there,” she pants out. “When Sam was comatose in that hospital. Death himself came personally to reap your brother.”

 

“So? Death reaps a lot of people.”

 

“No, he doesn’t,” she winces as he pours so sort of oil into the wound on her hand.  She doesn’t know what he’s put in it- Burnt angel feathers, she guess, by the scorching sensation that blazes across her skin everywhere it touches.

 

“Death doesn’t reap _humans_ , not intentionally. He just commands those who do. He reaps gods and immortals and Archangels and beings much higher on the foodchain.  The last mortal being who he made a point to reap was Mary.”

 

He raises an eyebrow, and begins to spread the oil across her cuts.  It hurts a bit less, now that she’s prepared to steel herself for the pain, to try and separate herself from the sensation. 

 

“Of Nazareth,” she clarifies.

 

“Well, I guess Sam and Jesus’s mom are just special like that, huh?”

 

“Death respects your brother, Dean. Imagine you affording respect to a microbe, being so impressed by it that you would be willing to ensure its safety. That my father feels the need to reap them personally is a testament to their sacrifice, and not something you should mock.” 

 

He stands up and turns away, looking over the tools he’s spread out across the table and giving her body a temporary reprieve.

 

“So, I’m getting that Jesus really must have been a difficult toddler to raise,” he replies sarcastically.

_I’m so alone I’m so afraid, can’t someone help me anyone, save us_

 

“Mary of Nazareth walked barefoot through every level of Hell in order to save humanity as it existed- The Bible includes only the final few chapters of her story. She had only Gabriel to accompany her on her journey. And he was not exactly a trustworthy guide, would trick her just as often and sometimes more cruelly than the demons would.”

 

He snorts at that, seemingly in understanding, holding a knife up to examine the weight of the blade.

 

His back is still turned to her while she enjoys her body's brief rest, but she knows his mercy won’t last long.

 

_Where did the doctor go, when is he coming back_

 

“Well, thanks for the history lesson, Tess. Now. You gonna tell me what Metatron is up to, are do I get to test the effects of more of this stuff on downed reapers?”

 

She considers spitting at his back, telling him _again_ that she does not work for Metatron, that she knows as much about the angel as Dean does. Less, probably. But those awful voices are still present in the back of her mind, millions of trapped souls.

 

_Trapped? Are we trapped? Help us please, where is my family there were just here beside my bed, I’m so afraid, save me please_

 

And he can’t do anything to stop that. Except kill her.

 

_No, no, don’t die, save us, you have to save us_

And if she knows a few things about Dean Winchester, one is that he reacts quickly in anger.  And the best way to make him angry is to use his brother against him. So she presses on.

 

“Sam’s soul,” she tells him, “Is more or less magnetized to the Cage.  If it leaves his body, it’s going straight back there faster than you or I could blink, to enjoy an eternity with Michael and Lucifer.”

 

Dean stiffens slightly, but he still pretends to be inspecting his tools.

 

“He’s going to get pulled down like a piece of lint in a vacuum hose,” she says, “And the only thing in the universe powerful enough to override that pull is Death.”

 

“Well, then,” Dean tells her, “It’s a good thing he was ready for Sam, huh?  Too bad he wasn’t needed.”  He’s got an angel blade in his hand, and he drags it along her cheek, so the sharp tip just breaks her skin.

 

“Too bad indeed,” she returns, focusing all her concentration on his impressively passive face, trying to figure out why he has changed so much, so that she can better ignore the tiny cuts he’s filleting behind her ear. 

 

“Because ‘was’ is the key word.  The big boss is a little busy, now.  Reapers like me- Or the ones that were fortunate enough to not be in Heaven when Metatron slammed the gates, the ones that _can_ still collect and carry souls- are meant to ferry the dead.  Not store them.  So everything that dies these days?  Death has to reap them personally, or they get caught in the Veil.  He doesn’t have the time to wait on Sam.”

 

_Am I dead no I can’t be, why isn’t anyone listening to me, Where’s my mom I want my mommy_

 

“Tessa, this isn’t storytime. I know we’ve been allies in the past- But you might have caught on to the fact that we aren’t anymore,” he says with a raised eyebrow and a gesture towards her manacles.  “So tell me why you’re working for Metatron.” Before she can even reply that he’s _still wrong,_ he pulls a short knife from behind his back and plunges it into her shoulder.

 

She screams out as her nerves sing with pain. She hates having a body, she hates being a downed reaper, she hates listening to the souls in the Veil, she hates that Metatron did this to so many of her kin-  “I hate the bastard,” she chokes out through her tears. “He devastated the Angels, and then he had the gall to close Heaven to the Reapers, practically act of war on the order of the universe-”

 

Dean pushes on the knife gently, and she feels it rip through muscle as she fails to stifle her cries.  “Hundreds of my family are _dead_ , Dean.  The rest are ineffective, or completely worthless, like me.  It will take our father _centuries_ to fix what he has wrought.  Why, why,” she pleads, “Why would I work for him?”

 

“Because I know Cas isn’t the one who asked you to go suicide bombing in his name.”

 

“No,” she admits, sobbing through her relief that he has stopped prodding at the blade in her shoulder.  “He would never.  But it is what I can do to help his cause, to help take out his competition. The sooner someone takes down Metatron, the sooner the Reapers can return to our jobs and help restore the balance of this universe. This is what you should want, too-”

 

“So Death can be Sammy’s on-call Reaper again? That where you are going with this?”

 

She sneers at him as he pulls a chair away from the table and straddles it, facing her.

 

_I can’t wake up why can’t I wake up from this, help me, What’s happening, save us please, please_

 

“You are a fool,” she laughs.  “Even after Death distributes the souls he’s been reaping, he won’t be done cleaning up.  Every single soul caught in the Veil- They each need to be individually freed by him, unwoven from that horror and delivered to their final resting place.  And after that? He needs to grow more Reapers, while simultaneously helping to fill the void left by my dead and fallen siblings. It takes nearly a decade to complete a new Reaper,” she tell him. 

 

“And that was in the early days of the Universe, when creating us was his primary focus. It could be a millennium before Death has the free time to even give your brother more than a passing thought. Sam may have once been a priority, but the priorities have shifted.”

 

“You’re lying.”

 

“You are little more than an ant to my father and our- his- kind,” she clarifies, because these days she is not a Reaper, not since she had the misfortune to be caught in Heaven when Metatron enacted his second spell.  “Why would I lie to an insect?”

 

There’s a sharp stinging across her face as his hand connects with her skin and she winces.  He’s crouching slightly now, so he can glare directly into her eyes.

_Save me someone save me, what is this place why can’t I see, help us someone anyone help us all_

“You know, I saw the Heaven Death had set up for him,” she teases.  “It was a nice place. Safe-guarded from everything that might threaten him- demons, angels, gods- Created so that only the soul it belonged to could permit entry, so that only Sam himself could control it-”

 

“Shut up,” Dean growls.

 

“He could be up there right now,” she continues. “He could have found all your old friends, could have found his girl Jess- They could have imagined themselves up a nice little cottage and a dog and a library of all the books he ever wanted, and he could have been up there reading right now, happy and safe, and ready to welcome you with a smile and a hug and a cold beer when your time came-”

 

“You’re a lying bitch,” he spits at her, but she carries on as though he never spoke.

 

_Help me help me, where did that man go he had a gun I think he shot me, Save us please_

 

“But he’s never going to see that Heaven, because of you.  He’s going back down to Hell the second he stops drawing breath, maybe even the second before. The Cage _wants_ him back, it _hungers_ for him and the brightness of his soul- And those Archangels he left behind?  The way they treated him for his first five thousand years is going to be fond memories compared to what they’ll have in store for the remainder of eternity, because they were _pissed_ when their little dolly got taken away, their rage shook Hell through nearly every plane it possesses, practically collapsed the 5 th Circle-”

 

“I said, Shut,” he punches her under the jaw, so her head hits the back of her chair, “Up.”

 

“-After my father and theirs, those angels are among the oldest beings in the Universe, and they know ways to torture Sam in ways you and I cannot even begin to _imagine_ might exist, and he’s going back there to experience that forever and ever because souls like Sam's are too strong to break, so instead they'll bruise and bend and beat until time itself runs out and it’s all because of you-”

 

_No no too far no, you can’t save us if you’re dead, too far, save us instead-_

The voices in her head, the ones that have been following her ever since she fell, the few that know the reality of their situation are clamoring with caution. But the truth is never ‘too far,’ she reckons. He might as well know.

 

_Besides_ , she thinks to them sadly _, I can’t exactly save you if I’m alive, either._

“You Damned your brother for eternity, Dean Winchester,” she spits at him, “Because you didn’t want to be alone.”

 

_No no no help us no no help please help_

Something in him breaks at those words, and his face contorts in pain and anger.  There’s a large knife in his hand one second- the First Blade, she can barely believe it- and the next, it’s sunk into her middle as she spasms around it, coughing on the blood that floods her mouth.

 

She wonders idly, if she has a soul, now that she’s no longer a Reaper.  And if she does, will she get caught in the Veil?  Or will her father make it to her in time, hold her close for the first and only instance as he ushers her into the lining of his overcoat, to wait and shiver and hope with the rest of the dead. 

 

_No,_ she reassures herself. _I have no soul, other than the ones I have ferried.  I have done my duty, and now it is over, and so can I be._

 

It’s her last thought before she ceases to exist.

 

Dean Winchester puts the First Blade back in his bag, not even bothering to wipe the disgraced Reaper’s blood from it, and reassures himself that she probably would have said anything, anything at all, to get a reaction from him.

 

Maybe he even believes it.


End file.
